….the plotted lines the faulty map
that brought Columbus to New York
Betwixt between the East and West
he calls on her wearing a leather vest
the earth squeals and shudders to a halt

A diamond crucifix in his ear
is used to help ward off the fear
that he has left his soul in someone’s rented car
Inside his pants he hides a mop
to clean the mess that he has dropped
into the life of lithesome Juliette Bell

…I’ll take Manhattan in a garbage bag
With Latin written on it that says
‘it’s hard to give a shit these days’
Manhattan’s sinking like a rock
Into the filthy Hudson what a shock
They wrote a book about it
They said it was like ancient Rome ~ Lou Reed

I thought I would share a bit of Lou Reed prose from the song Romeo Had Juliette. I too am caught between the twisted stars in a life that seems not to be my own but a life in perpetual reverie of fear, regret and entangled self-entitlement by proxy.

As the politics of reaction dominate the national psyche, the global functions of systemic dissonance crumbling and the earth besieged by fossil fuels; it is indeed hard to give a shit these days as Mr. Reed pontificated. I try to give a shit yet I am irreparably torn between the two masks that I have displayed to the world at large.

I split my time between the country and the city, though my time in the country is coming to an end in a few months. The cold asphalt and human interaction awaits in the aftermath of isolation and peacefulness and beauty. My schema dictates parallel worlds of the conscious self and the self that I expect to attain.

The cold city is a familiar one. Rising from the ashes of a small town on the edge of the mountains to move on to the intensity and swelter of the desert, I would find myself at nineteen years of age living the life of a budding intellectual among the Northeast Radicals while simultaneously escaping to the outreaches of New England blight to score dope in back alleys from a Puerto Rican gangster honorarily named Pony Boy.

The rise, the fall and the constancy of a static state of failures followed by greater failures was the life of mine. The grime of my psyche still an ever present reminder of a time of my slow suicide.

The tip of my left index finger forever gone as I am made aware of my shortcomings and an existence of hope and hopelessness.

I always turned to Lou Reed in times of despair and times of self-manifested utopia. The words mapping the path I would emulate. The quest for self and the inevitable self destruction that was a scientific certainty.

As I race toward maturity and acceptance and importance, I react to Reed in quite the same manner. It is my path toward a greater existence. A path of cold faces and self-induced misery along the way. My path is not determined yet.

I find solace in the boredom of a life without the grime attached to my psyche. The words I spread. The words of others I spread. I have ultimately found the path I always meant for myself. My freedom is my manifestation of the life that I once ran from but now embrace with bated trepidation. So:

Take me for what I am
a star newly emerging
Long simmering explodes
inside the self is reeling
In the pocket of the heart, in the rushing of the blood
in the muscle of my sex, in the mindful mindless love
I accept the new found man
and set the twilight reeling ~ Lou Reed: Set The Twilight Reeling

Comments

Wow… that was a thought provoking piece of writing. Very nice. I love Lou Reed too.

Written by Todd Curl on May 30, 2010.

Thanks Kim. A bit of whimsical introspection on my life. I guess Lou Reed inspires a touch of darkness inside of me — or brings it out. I better throw on some upbeat music like ‘The Smiths’ or “Red House Painters’ before I get too depressed : )

Written by Patricia on May 30, 2010.

Wow todd. Beautiful writing with intense emotion. Had my husband been alive to read this he would have said while nodding: ‘Aye, This was quit profound’. He would have understood and appreciated this. He was an Intellect, deep thinker, genius IQ and like you, he wrote beautifully. Your writing is fluid but but not thin like water, it’s like molten lava, thick, thick with meaning and I get a sense of tightly restrained emotion, hot with reflection, self reproach, hope and potential all at once and this strong desire to quickly morph into your whole self, yet flows smooth and easy like thick, hot lava until it finds a place to pool, rest and solidify. The writing and the man. This might be too personal so my feeling won’t be hurt if you choose not to publish it.

Written by Todd Curl on May 30, 2010.

Wow, thank you so much for the meaningful words Patricia. I’ve never had someone say such nice things about my literary-type writing — other than than my 11th grade language arts student-teacher (such a lovely lass she was). I wish I spent more time writing about personal insights and the like, yet I get so frustrated with our world — and I owe a lot of money for my education in History and Political Economy — that I tend to focus on issues outside of myself; which isn’t entirely a bad thing. I know somewhere inside of me is a Kerouac and Samuel Becket trying to get out, perhaps someday it will. Thank you again for the sentiments, and even though your belated husband was a Scotsman, this Irishman would be happy to get such a compliment.